“As adults, we think there are good people, bad people, and people who are somewhere in between,” says @jessicas.bsky.social, professor of psychology @artsci.utoronto.ca. “It seems like infants are thinking the same way.” 👶 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/infants...

We are greatly looking forward CDS in Montreal next week!! Come see us at our talks and posters!

LAST CLASS of 2025/2026 academic year is in the books! I know what I'll be dancing to tonight!!

Loved working on this paper with Kat (lead) and Hyo!

This research investigated infants’ ability to make moral character inferences. For a wide range of moral roles, infants could use an agent’s past moral behavior to revise their expectations for future moral behavior. @normanjzeng.bsky.social @jessicas.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Stoked to share our new lab pub led by the amazing @normanjzeng.bsky.social ! After watching multi-party agent events, infants expect agents to preserve their moral "role" in a resource distribution task. Indiv. variability predicted by infants' social contact. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Are you attending @cogdevsoc.bsky.social 2026? Come join us for an afternoon pre-conference workshop on motivation in development! We'll bring together developmental, educational, and computational perspectives to ask: Can we build a unified account of motivation across the lifespan? ✨

Shine a spotlight on exceptional #infantstudies researchers by nominating for the Distinguished Early Career Contribution Award, Outstanding Dissertation Award and Translational Research Award. Close March 26, 2026. infantstudies.org/merit-awards/

New paper out in Child Development (@srcdorg.bsky.social) with Dave Sobel (@candmlab.bsky.social)! ✨ We investigated how 5- to 7-year-old children decide to take on easy versus hard tasks while pursuing a goal. doi.org/10.1093/chid...

The first generation to grow up with AI deserves healthy social relationships. I'm pleased to be a part of this international, interdisciplinary Research Fellowship childhoodandailab.org/our-fellows-... with the #ChildhoodAndAILab from #AIChildSafety.org.

Big news on #SaferInternetDay: I’ve been elected as a Research Fellow with the AIChildSafety.org Childhood & AI Lab. Grateful to John Zoltner and the Lab for creating space for this kind of work. 🔗 lnkd.in/ggm6bgtv #AIChildSafety #ChildhoodAndAI #ResponsibleAI #DevSci

Why do otherwise rational people disagree about the same evidence? Our new paper finds that group membership is a deeply rooted influence on how we form beliefs, leading even preschoolers to bias their evidential standards and form inaccurate beliefs. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

💥New paper alert! Dyadic Decisions About Effort: How Caregivers Shape Young Children’s Persistence (with @reutshachnai.bsky.social) One of my favorites! If you’re curious about what we’ve been up to in @leonardlearnlab.bsky.social, take a look! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

We propose that 2-year-olds show emerging sensitivity to disadvantageous outcomes, but only 4-year-olds' costly responses to unfairness reflect true disadvantageous inequity aversion. Read more at: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New lab paper with Dave Sobel @candmlab.bsky.social and led by the remarkable @radovanovic.bsky.social and @jaeminhwang.bsky.social. Infants expect equality not only in resource distributions but also resource collections.

Out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @jaeminhwang.bsky.social, David Sobel (@candmlab.bsky.social), and @jessicas.bsky.social! Most studies of infants’ fairness expectations focus on resource distribution, but in everyday life, we engage in many different kinds of resource exchanges.

This paper about inferences that kids draw on the basis of parental incarceration is now published! Pretty version here: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-.... Link to full text & summary in thread below. 🧪 #PsychSciSky #SocialPsyc #DevPsyc @socphilpsych.bsky.social

Is it wrong that I'm trying to use AI to try to come up with AI proof assignments for my students? (pls say no, or better yet, give me some suggestions!).

Congrats, Dr. @tiffany6390.bsky.social! 👏 news.miami.edu/stories/2025...

Are you a US-based PhD student WITHOUT summer funding who is interested in adolescent development, trans youth, and/or gender? Reach out to me about applying to join my lab in Summer 2026 for the VIPS program! psych.princeton.edu/diversity/vi...

Who's afraid of AI? toronto2025.ai

Hi #canadian researchers - please sign this petition to help ensure funding isn’t cut to tri council agencies (NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR). We’re looking at potential 15% cuts to ALL federal spending including grants win.newmode.net/canadianasso...

📣📣📣 Hi Everyone! I'm accepting PhD students for the Fall 2026 cycle! Our lab topics include the developmental origins and elaboration of moral cognition/prosocial behavior, persistence, and optimism. More info below!!

Lazarus et al. (2025): A simple act with a lasting impact: Holding babies skin-to-skin in the NICU helped support their development and reduced differences linked to family income. Early touch can be a powerful way to promote equity from the very start #infancypapers doi.org/10.1111/infa...

New paper! Here (in Nature Communications) we (Ale Geraci, Luca Surian, Lucia Gabriella Tina, & I; work led/run by Ale) show that 5-day-old newborns selectively attend to two distinct forms of prosocial over antisocial action: approaching versus avoiding and helping versus hindering. rdcu.be/evorW

I'm hiring a full-time #labmanager for my new Lab for Infant Learning and Cognition (LILAC) at UCSB! The start date is flexible, but could be as early as August 1, 2025. Application review begins July 17th and will continue until the position is filled 👶🪴 recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02992 #academicjobs

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity!!! The Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@UofT) is hiring a postdoc to study early optimism in infants & young children. Work w/ multi-method approach, amazing undergrads & grads. Start: Fall 2025 or later. Details: [email protected] RTs appreciated 💫

Wow this is cool!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PnO... Check out this 1 min clip where I describe why it's impossible for AI to 'understand' language. based on @theconversation.com article lnkd.in/gh97_cbW #Neuroscience @brocku.ca

Check out my new article in The Conversation Canada, based on my research in #Neuroscience at @brocku.ca theconversation.com/a-neuroscien...

Just had the chance to present on an @infantstudies.bsky.social panel about inexpensive methods for data collection with children - if you're curious about how Children Helping Science works/the kinds of studies you can run, this slide deck is a good place to start! docs.google.com/presentation...

My ICIS blog post about some of our lab's recent work: infantstudies.org/to-try-or-no...

#SRCD2025 come check out the Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@jessicas.bsky.social)! @elainewang.bsky.social will also be presenting work with @julia-a-leonard.bsky.social that we got to collaborate on :)

Breaking News: Canada’s Liberal Party is projected to win, electing Mark Carney, who ran on an anti-Trump platform, as prime minister. nyti.ms/4308UmS

Canadian Academics!: I'm seeing that CAUT just issued a travel advisory warning against non-essential travel to the US. I'm curious to know how folks are feeling about this and whether it will affect plans to attend upcoming conferences? www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Research led by Psychology PhD candidate @radovanovic.bsky.social & Prof. @jessicas.bsky.social is investigating how people-pleasing socialization influences how children solve problems. 💡 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/people-...

One of the wildest polling-related charts I've seen in my lifetime. via @338canada.bsky.social:

I am so sick of this bullshit. Canada outperforms the US on every wellbeing indicator I can think of. #ViveLeCanada

“There are, as Donald Trump and Don Corleone might put it, two ways of doing this: the easy way and the hard way,” writes @eliotacohen.bsky.social. When it comes to making Canada the 51st state, neither is advisable: theatln.tc/6oAICykE

Nice write up from U of T, about a study we published in the fall led by the AMAZING @radovanovic.bsky.social . Take a listen to her podcast interview too. www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/people-...

Time to re-share this article, which lays out the many similarities in how Trump talks about Canada and how Putin talks about Ukraine. It's getting worse by the day. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

THIS IS HUGE! Researchers at Stanford University have developed a dual-antibody treatment that remains effective against ALL SARS-CoV-2 variants by targeting a less-mutable part of the virus. This breakthrough could lead to longer-lasting therapies that OUTPACE viral evolution. 🧪🧵⬇️

"Long may the maple leaf fly above a sovereign and unbowed north" www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Looking for a post-doc? Apply for the Western Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at Western University @westernu.bsky.social in Canada🇨🇦. Comes with a competitive salary and a research stipend: www.uwo.ca/research/fun...

Boycott everything Elon: Tesla, Neuralink, X, etc! betakit.com/its-done-its...

Ok, Canadians. You know what to do. Tighten our belts. Strengthen our resolve. Show our unity. Demonstrate our national pride. Support our real allies. Put Canada first forever and always.

Stand up for Science, March 7

Join us in supporting NIH and NSF in local papers across the country!

We're just a few days away from this year's Morality Preconference!! Don't miss it! #SPSP2025